The Frontal of Sant' Marti de Puigbo and the Saint Martin of Tours Iconography in the Catalan Altar Painting Tradition

Dyadyunova Natalya Arturovna Postgraduate student, Department of General Art History, Lomonosov Moscow State University 119192, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Lomonosovskii Prospekt, 27, korpus 4 ndyadyunova@gmail.com

The Romanesque frontal of Sant Marti de Puigbo (Vic Episcopal Museum, MEV 9) (Fig. 1) is a unique monument of Catalan altarpiece painting on wood of the XII century. The so–called frontales are a special type of medieval liturgical utensils, which became widespread in Catalan churches in the XII - XIII centuries. Their original function in the temple space, as well as the origin of this typology, remain unknown to the end, however, it is traditionally believed that these monuments of painting decorated the front of the altar and were addressed to parishioners during mass, which is why the name of this type of works of altar painting (frontal – Spanish "frontal", "front") [1. P. 107].

Romanesque Catalan altarpiece painting on wood (and the frontal of Sant' Marti de Puigbo, in particular), due to the fact that it has practically no analogues in medieval Western art, has become not only the subject of systematic and attentive art criticism for many years, but also a symbol of national Catalan identity, which is especially relevant in Catalonia due to modern political agenda. Nevertheless, it is interesting that such a view of one's national art is not a product of exclusively modern realities in Catalonia. The discovery at the end of the XIX century of these monuments of medieval painting served as an occasion to study the entire heritage of Catalan art, which logically integrated into the policy of the so-called "Catalan Renaissance". The "Catalan Renaissance" (1833-1892), or Renaixen?a (cat.), is a cultural and socio–political movement that arose among the ethnic Catalans of the Kingdom of Spain for the revival, first of all, of the Catalan language as a full-fledged, self-sufficient and independent of Castilian ^[2]. This "renaissance" coincided with the economic upswing that could be observed at the beginning of the XIX century in Catalonia, where industrialization was proceeding at a faster pace compared to backward, agrarian Spain. Such an economic leap indirectly stimulated the movement for its political independence in Catalonia, the manifestation of which was the desire to introduce the regional Catalan language into wide use. The result of this cultural phenomenon was an appeal to their national art, which became Romanesque painting, which developed in medieval Catalonia independently of the rest of Spain. The reason for studying Catalan medieval art apart from Spanish was the fact that during the Middle Ages the Catalan Comarques remained independent and maintained close cultural, political and economic ties with Italy and France, while the rest of the Iberian Peninsula (with the exception of the northern kingdoms) was under the rule of the Arab Caliphate. Its own historical path, national language and literature, as well as a unique artistic tradition became the foundation on which Catalan nationalism was formed at the beginning of the XX century.

It is worth noting that the first systematic studies of Catalan Romanesque painting at the beginning of the XX century were devoted specifically to the art of frontales. Their popularity among researchers was due to the fact that a large collection of paintings on wood, originating from the episcopate of Vic, was presented to the general public at the World Exhibition in Barcelona in 1888 as a matter of national pride. This collection has been collected for many years by the Bishop of Vic, Josep Murgades y Gili (1882-1899), the main part of which will later become part of the impressive collection of the future Episcopal Museum of Vic, where the frontal of Sant' Marti de Puigbo, analyzed by us in this article, is kept today. One of the first Catalan researchers of medieval art, Josep Puchgari, dedicated a large catalog to these monuments of Romanesque painting, in which he not only gave an accurate iconographic description of each of the frontales, but also tried to systematize these monuments in accordance with the chronology established by him [3. PP. 107-109]. Since then, the chronology proposed by Josep Puchgari has been established in the studies of the Catalan frontales. It was adhered to by such authors as Antonio Munoz ^[4], Ramon Casellas ^[5] and Gudiol y Cunil ^[5], who, following Puchgari, dated the main monuments of Romanesque Catalan painting to the XI century. It is noteworthy that these frontales Puchgari called "the oldest known monuments of Catalan painting" ^[3]. Probably, such a time frame, which limited the creation of these works of art to the XI century, deliberately emphasized the antiquity of the Catalan artistic tradition. This conclusion can also be made on the grounds that this catalog was released for the World Exhibition, in connection with which Catalan researchers sought to demonstrate to the whole world the historical value of their national art and put it on a par with the best examples of European Romanesque painting.

The Frontal of Sant'marti de Puigbo, to whom this work will be dedicated, in these earliest Catalan studies is attributed the role of a kind of "incunabula" of the technique of altar painting on wood in Catalonia. Josep Puchgari dated this monument to the first half of the XI century, and its creation was connected, according to Puchgari, with the activities of the Ripoll workshop [3. P. 108]. Within the framework of this article, it is important to note that the dating of monuments of Romanesque painting on wood at the beginning of the XI century was based primarily on stylistic analysis. The Girona Beatus (Museum of the Girona Cathedral, 970, Cat. Gir. Ms. 7) and the Beatus from La Seu d were considered as artistic sources.’Urgell (Museum of the Diocese of d’Urgell, Con. X century, Ms. 26) [3. P. 108]. Moreover, these early studies do not take into account the fact that the Girona Beatus was transferred to Girona only around 1078, and the Urgell Beatus is not mentioned in the inventory lists of the cathedral until 1147.

A radical revision of the temporal boundaries of the art of Romanesque frontales occurred in the 20s of the XX century in the works of the American Walter Cook. Cook's main contribution was the dating of the frontales, considered the most ancient, as well as the picturesque wooden canopies, by the XII century, which went against the earlier dating proposed by Puchgari, which was persistently supported by many Catalan researchers. The altar from Sant Marti de Puigbo Cook dates from the first quarter of the XII century, and stylistically close to him and also originating from the Ripoll workshop, the canopy from Ribas de Fresser (Vic Episcopal Museum) is now dated 1135-1150 years [7. PP. 94-95, 101]. Such a radical change in the dating of monuments, considered the earliest in Romanesque Catalan art, was not supported by Catalan researchers. Josep Gudiol-i-Kunil (1927) [8. PP. 77, 85-86.] and Joaquim Folc y Torres (1926) [9. P. 63] continued to insist on dating to the XI century. It is significant that such dating will last in historiography until the second half of the XX century: in 1956, Joaquim Folk-y-Torres slightly raised the lower limit of dating and carried the altars from Puigbo, La Seu d’Urzhel, Isha and Dosmuntus by the end of the XI – beginning of the XII centuries [10. PP. 165-66]., but still insisted on earlier dates than Cook suggested ^[11].

Only modern art historians at the end of the XX – beginning of the XXI centuries again attempted to photograph the monuments of Catalan altar painting on wood in accordance with the chronological framework established by foreign studies ^[12]. Manuel Castigneiras, a professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, made a great contribution to this reassessment. Together with experts from the National Museum of Catalan Art, Castigneiras conducted a technical analysis of some of the frontales (altar from La Seu d’Urzhel and the altar from Aspinelvas), which confirmed the dating of the XII century (and in some cases the end of the XII century) of these works of Romanesque art [13. PP. 119-153].

In our opinion, iconographic analysis will help to establish the exact dating, as well as the authorship (i.e. belonging to the art workshop) of the Frontal Sant'marti de Puigbo, which has long been considered a style-forming monument in the Catalan artistic tradition. Separate attempts to compare the iconography of this work with other medieval pictorial monuments of Catalonia were made by Manuel Castigneiras ^[14], however, no research has yet been published that comprehensively covers the problem of establishing the iconographic sources of the frontal Sant Marti de Puigbo, as well as characterizing the historical context, which would allow us to speak more accurately about the place and time of creation works, as well as about its original function. It is these questions that we will try to answer in this article.

The frontal of Sant-Marti de Puigbo got into the collection of the Museum of the Vic Literary Circle, on the basis of which in 1891 the Vic Episcopal Museum was created, in 1882 from the small parish church of Sant-Marti de Puigbo in the municipality of Gombrun, which was part of the comarca (district) of Ripoles (province of Girona). Despite the fact that the poor preservation of the church of Sant Marti de Puigbo does not allow us to reconstruct the original appearance of the inner temple space, as well as the exact historical context of the creation of this painting monument, we can definitely, following Puchgari and Cook, attribute it to the Ripoll workshop, which was the leading one in the XII century in the comarca of Ripoles.

The frontal of Sant'marti de Puigbo is stylistically and compositionally close to other monuments of altarpiece Catalan painting, also originating from the workshop of the monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll, which was one of the most important artistic and religious centers in the XI-XII centuries. It is necessary to compare the frontal analyzed by us with the front panel of the Canopy da Ribas (1119-1134, Vic Episcopal Museum, MEV 3884) and with the frontal d’Askius (vt. chet. XII century, National Museum of Catalan Art, MNAC 65502). The central part in all three monuments is occupied by a mandorla with an image of Christ in Glory. The side compartments are divided conditionally into two registers: these parts of the altar board are traditionally occupied either by hagiographic scenes (as in Sant'marti de Puigbo), or images of angels (Baldachin da Ribas) or apostles (frontal d'ascius). The poor preservation of the front panel of the Canopy da Ribas does not allow us to draw unambiguous conclusions about its original appearance, however, we can assume that it had a compositional device similar to the other two monuments.

In our opinion, the frontal of Sant'marti de Puigbo is a simpler, "provincial" version of this compositional type. The coloristic solution is also simplified in this monument in comparison with other works of the Ripoll workshop. In addition, unlike the Baldachin da Ribas and the frontal d'ascius, where the sinuses of the central compartment with the mandorla are filled with images of angels and symbols of Evangelists, in the frontal of Sant'marti de Puigbo this place is occupied by a floral ornament in the form of palmettes. Nevertheless, it is interesting that this motif probably migrated to the monument of altarpiece painting from the book miniature.

Manuel Castigneiras repeatedly emphasized the importance for the artistic life of medieval Catalonia of the scriptorium of the monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll, as well as the connection of the tradition of book illumination with the monuments of monumental painting and altar painting on wood in Catalonia ^[15]. At the beginning of the XI century, the abbot of the monastery, Abbot Oliba, brought from Italy (presumably from Rome or from Montecassino) to the Ripoll monastery a number of manuscripts that could serve as potential models for early Roman Catalan bibles - the Ripoll Bible (Rome, Bib.Apost.Vat.,Vat.lat.5729) and the Bible of the Genus (Paris, B.N., Ms.Lat.6), originating from the scriptorium of the monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll ^{[16, PP. 605-606]}. Among such manuscripts, presumably executed in the scriptorium of the Ripoll monastery, is the Evangelarium of Kusha (1120-1130, Perpignan, Biblioth?que Municipale, Ms. 1). Oliba was also the abbot of the monastery of Sant-Michel de Kusha, for whom this Evangelarium was made. On one of the pages of this manuscript (fol. 2), the composition Majestas Domini in mandorla is framed by floral ornaments in the form of palmettes similar to the frontal of Sant'marti de Puchbo. In our opinion, there was some kind of common (non-preserved) handwritten sample for the contemporary Kuch Evangelarium and the Frontale Sant'marti de Puigbo. Chemical and technical analysis of some monuments of altarpiece painting on wood (frontal from La Seu d’Urgell, frontal from Isha), conducted in the laboratory of the National Museum of Catalan Art, confirms our version. He showed that the masters who worked with wood painting were also familiar with the painting technique of illuminating manuscripts and used the same artistic materials [13. PP. 135-136].

The connection of the frontal of Sant'marti de Puigbo with the Ripoll workshop is also confirmed by the technical analysis of the Baldachina da Ribas panel [13. P. 137]. In infrared radiation, it can be seen that the original interpretation and drawing of the beard of Christ coincided with its interpretation on the front of the Puchbo. So, in our opinion, the Ripoll masters could rely on some one, unknown to us, protograph, presumably created or stored in the monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll.

Let us now turn to the lateral compartments of the frontal, in which scenes from the life of St. Martin of Tours are presented. The cult of Saint Martin was very widespread in medieval Catalonia, and several more examples of altarpiece paintings on wood dedicated to this saint have survived to this day - for example, the frontal of Isha (vt. chet. XII in, MNAC 15802) and frontal de Chia (vt. floor XIII in, MNAC 3902). Next, our task will be to reveal the reason for the popularity of this story in Catalonia in the XII -XIII centuries and establish a connection between the cult of St. Martin and the Ripoll workshop.

Saint Martin, Bishop of Tours is one of the most revered saints in France and Spain. The main hagiographic source for us is the "Life of St. Martin" (Vita Martini), written by his disciple Sulpicius Severus in 390. It is on this textual source that some of the hagiographic scenes presented in the frontale of Sant'marti de Puigbo rely. In the upper left corner, the plot of partitio chlamidis, or the separation of the cloak, is depicted. According to Sulpicius Severus, one winter Saint Martin, even before his baptism, being a military commander (the future bishop grew up in a non-Christian family, he was destined to build a military career after his father), saw a beggar completely undressed, freezing in the winter cold, whom everyone avoided. Then Saint Martin took a sword and divided his cloak into two parts, in one of which he dressed the beggar. Pious tradition connects the image of a beggar with the image of Jesus Christ. "Truly, the Lord clearly remembered what he had said before: Since you did it to one of my lesser brothers, you did it to Me, for it was the Lord Himself who appeared in the form of a poor man covered with clothes. As a testimony of a good deed, He honored Martin with an appearance [to him] in the clothes that the beggar had taken" ^[17]. This plot is also known as the mercy of St. Martin and is one of the most common in the monuments of painting (it is present in the Catalan frontales from Puigbo, from Isha and from Chia), which we will turn to a little later.

The lower left stamp depicts a scene with one of the miracles of St. Martin – the resurrection of the catechumenist. This fragment of the frontal has the worst preservation: the saint's face was damaged. However, according to the preserved fragment, we can conclude that St. Martin is already represented here in episcopal vestments. He leads the resurrected catahumen by the hand (his eyes are closed, which indirectly indicates that he belongs to the world of the dead). The identification of the third character in this stigma is controversial: Walter Cook believed that one of the disciples of St. Martin is represented here (either Sulpicius Severus himself or Desiderius) [7. P. 87]. Manuel Castiglieras suggested that this scene depicts Hilary (Pictavian), bishop of the city of Poitiers [14. P. 78]. In our opinion, it really could have been depicted by Hilary of Pictavia, since these events, according to Vita Martini, took place in 360 in the first monastery of Gaul (Liguge Abbey), where Bishop Hilary received the saint:"But since Hilary had already left by that time, Martin rushed in his footsteps. And he was most favorably received by Hilary, and settled near the city in a monastery" ^[17].

If the left side of the frontal of Sant'marti de Puigbo is dedicated to the life and virtues of Saint Martin, then the right side is dedicated to the death and ascension of his soul. These scenes no longer rely directly on a hagiographic source, since there is no description of the saint's death in the Life of Saint Martin. The lower brand is dedicated directly to his death: Saint Martin is depicted lying on his deathbed surrounded by an angel ready to receive the soul of the deceased, and presumably his disciples (Sulpicius Severus and Desiderius). The upper stigma shows the scene of the ascension of the soul (elevatio animae). Saint Martin is depicted on it twice: at the bottom there is a semi-figure of the saint with a gesture of oranta, and then the bust of Saint Martin is again found in the upper part of the composition, where a kind of drapery with a chest image of the saint, symbolizing the soul of Martin, is supported by two angels.

Manuel Castigneiras notes the connection of the composition of the right part of the frontal with the memorial mass of the Benedictine charter, which was adhered to by the Abbey of Santa Maria de Ripoll [14. P. 80]. Another interesting detail is the similarity of the profile image of an angel with one wing in the lower tier of the right part of the frontal with a "one-winged" angel on one of the miniatures of the Bible of the Genus, made in the scriptorium of the Ripolsky monastery (fol. 127). This fact, in our opinion, is another argument in favor of the belonging of this monument to the Ripoll art workshop.

However, let us turn again to the stigma depicting the partitio chlamidis scene, since the iconographic analysis of this particular fragment will allow us to reconstruct the historical context of the creation of the frontal of Sant'marti de Puigbo and, as a result, confirm or refute its modern dating of 1120-1150 years. The separation of the cloak is the most illustrated plot in medieval painting from The Life of St. Martin. We have identified two main iconographic types of this hagiographic plot. The first type, dating back to a miniature from Fulda's Sacramentarium (ca. 960, G?ttingen, Universit?tsbibliothek, Cod. Theol. 231, fol. 113a) is a separate scene with a full-length figure of St. Martin standing opposite the figure of a beggar [14. P. 83]. This iconographic type includes the French monumental murals of the XII century in Saint-Hilaire-le-Grand in Poitiers, as well as fragmentary preserved Catalan murals from Sant Marti de Sascorts and the aforementioned frontal from Isha.

The frontal of Sant'marti de Puigbo belongs to the second iconographic type. This type is characterized by the image of Saint Martin in the image of a warrior riding a horse (in the case of the frontal of Sant Marti de Puchbo, the saint is depicted with a shield and with a military banner). The second type goes back, presumably, to the sculptural decoration of the cloister of Saint-Pierre in Moissac [14. P. 83]. The frontal of the second half of the XIII century from Chia, which we mentioned earlier, can also be attributed to the same type. Such a specific image of the saint was obviously intended to emphasize not only his mercy and virtue, but also his military qualities.

Despite the fact that the origin of the cult of St. Martin in Catalonia is associated with French influence, in fact, its veneration and spread on the territory of the Catalan mosquitoes has received an independent character. The cult of Saint Martin in Catalonia is associated with the establishment of the Spanish Marca (Marca Hispanica), after the Battle of Poitiers in 732, when the Frankish state stopped the Arab advance into Europe. Thus, from the moment of its origin in the Catalan lands, the cult of St. Martin immediately began to be defined by his role as a defender of Christians in the fight against infidels, that is, Muslim Arabs who conquered the Iberian Peninsula in 711.

From the middle of the XI and throughout the XII centuries, in the context of the Gregorian reform and the call for a Christian Crusade for the liberation of the Holy Land, such a role of St. Martin quickly strengthened, and initially the peacemaking, virtuous appearance of the saint was replaced by more militant connotations that created the image of St. Martin as a great warrior, knight and defender of Christians. This new aspect stems, in fact, from the old tradition of combining the functions of a warrior and defender of the faith, associated with the Merovingian legend of King Clovis, who placed on the grave of St. Martin the trophies received at the Battle of Vuillet in 507 against the Visigoths, having sworn to convert to Christianity (in its orthodox form, not in Arian). So, when at the end of the XI century in Europe (in France, in particular) the idea of reconquering Holy Places began to spread, there was also a change in the image of St. Martin in Catalonia towards a more heroic and militant character, which was closely related to the spirit of the Reconquista that began in the north of the Iberian Peninsula a few decades before. It is in this image that Saint Martin will be on the Catalan front from Sant' Marti de Puigbo.

Interestingly, determining the origins of such iconography of St. Martin will help shed light on the historical context of the creation of the frontal we are analyzing. The church of Sant Marti de Puigbo, for which, presumably, this frontal was made, was originally in the department of the county of Berga, which, in turn, was in vassalage to the house of the dukes of Cerdani from the house of Besalu. These lands were also under the special patronage of the Bishop of Tours, as evidenced by the document on his consecration of the Church of St. Martin in Puig-Reche in 907 in the presence of Duke Miro II of Serdan [18. P. 39]. In 988, after his abdication, the Duke of Cerdany, Oliba Cabrera, divided his possessions between his sons: the county of Besalu was transferred to Bernardo I Tagliaferro, Bethred II received Cerdany and Conflans, and Oliba (the future abbot of Santa Maria de Ripoll) — the county of Berga and Ripoles. However, as is known, in 1003, Oliba, becoming a monk, renounced his hereditary possessions in favor of his younger brother Bethred II, who re-united the counties of Cerdan and Berg. Nevertheless, after the Besalu dynasty, which ruled the united lands of Cerdan, Berga and Ripoles, was suppressed in 1118, power over them passed to the dukes of Barcelona, namely Count Ramon Berenguer III.

It is with the personality of Ramon Berenguer III, in our opinion, that the creation of the frontale Sant'marti de Puigbo is connected. We were convinced that by the time this monument could be completed (the second quarter of the XII century), the church of Sant'marti de Puigbo was under the patronage of the Count of Barcelona (despite the fact that it belonged geographically to Cerdani). In 1114, a few years before the annexation of Cerdani, the count took part in a coalition with the French against the Saracens to conquer the island of Majorca, and just a year before his second wife, Dulce I (Countess of Provence), had already ceded her rights to the hereditary county of Provence to him. Ramon Berenguer also subordinated the territory of Tarragona to his power. Thus, the count embodied the image of that warrior-hero, defender of Christians, with whom Saint Martin was associated.

However, the connection between the saint and the Duke of Barcelona is much closer. It is worth mentioning that Saint Martin, as reported in the Catalan chronicle, was the patron saint of Ramon Berenguer III, since the Count of Barcelona was born on November 11, 1082 – on the saint's memorial day – "in festo Sancti Martini natus fuerat" [19. PP. 33-36] It is no coincidence that Ramon Berenguer III acted as the main customer of some key monuments (primarily architectural) dedicated to this saint - for example, the monastery of Sant' Marti da Provencals. The history of its foundation was connected with a local legend that told about the arrival of St. Martin to the Catalan lands and, in particular, to the place where the monastery of St. Martin would be founded centuries later. According to this legend, upon arrival in these lands on the way to Catalonia, Saint Martin settled here in a small chapel. Thus, the legend of the founding of the city of Provence echoes the fact that the fleet of Provencal knights, who accompanied Countess Dulce de Provence to Catalonia in 1112 after her wedding with Ramon Berenger III, founded a monastery here by order of the count with an exact location that coincided with the location of the chapel, where St. Martin himself probably, planned to found a monastery [20. P. 90-91].

One monument, in our opinion, will help to establish another connection between the altar of Sant Marti de Puigbo and the patronage of Ramon Berenguer.  It is necessary to pay attention to some iconographic and compositional similarity of the scene of the ascension of the soul of St. Martin on the frontal with a similar scene of the ascension of the soul of Ramon Berenger on his tombstone (ca. 1131-1050) from the church of the monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll - the tomb of the Counts of Barcelona (Fig. 2) [14. P. 83]. Thus, in our opinion, the frontal of Sant'marti de Puigbo could have been commissioned for the church of the same name by the workshop of Santa Maria de Ripoll in memory of Count Ramon Berenguer III, who died in 1131. The dedication of the frontal to Saint Martin is connected, in this case, with the fact that he was the patron saint of the count, and the image of the saint as a knight corresponds to the military exploits and virtues of Ramon Berenger. Perhaps the mentioned sculptural tombstone from the Ripoll monastery, along with other picturesque monuments originating from Santa Maria de Ripoll, could serve as a potential model for the masters who worked on the frontal. It is also worth assuming that there was some third, perhaps still undiscovered or lost monument, which was either a protograph, that is, it belonged to the "mobile" monuments of the iconographic Roman type (a manuscript or a small plastic object) and was brought by the monk Oliba (abbot of the monastery) from Italy, or was an "intermediate" a work created already in the workshop of the monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll. Nevertheless, this option, in our opinion, is less likely, since stylistically the frontal of Sant'marti de Puigbo is a somewhat simpler, provincial version, compared to other altars made also in the Ripoll workshop.

 So, despite the fact that we still cannot accurately speak about the specific customer of this monument and the compiler of its iconographic program, we can establish a more accurate dating of this work of Romanesque Catalan painting on wood and attribute the lower threshold of the time of its creation to 1131, that is, the year of the death of Count Ramon Berenguer III. In our opinion, it is the iconographic analysis, as well as the reconstruction of the historical and cultural context on the basis of archival data, that made it possible to more accurately date this exceptional monument of altarpiece Catalan painting on wood, which throughout the history of the study of Catalan medieval art was subjected to "historiographical mythologization". Having become a victim of the myth of the "oldest monument of Catalan painting", the frontal Sant Marti de Puigbo was not in the field of attention of Catalan researchers for a long time, as it was perceived as the starting point of the development of the entire Catalan artistic tradition, which was caused, as we tried to demonstrate, by the desire to emphasize at the beginning of the XX century the original historical path of Catalonia through monuments her medieval art. New research methods have allowed us to more accurately determine the place of this monument in the history of Catalan Romanesque art, which greatly emphasizes the connection of the frontal Sant' Marti de Puigbo with other European medieval artistic traditions.

Illustrations

Fig. 1. Frontale Sant'marti de Puigbo (Ca. 1120-1150)

Ripoll's workshop (?). Vic Episcopal Museum

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